Friends of the BU Library Annual Awards

The Friends of the BU Library will award the $250 2018 Library Research Prize to Berit Turnquist and the 2018-19 Connie Larson Memorial Scholarship for Library Student Workers to Lindsey Long.

Berit Turnquist will present her paper "Wise Women: The Female Junzi in Confucian Ethics"

In the canon of Confucian ethics, women are rarely addressed as candidates for sagehood or as participants in any structured pursuit of moral self-cultivation. In this presentation, I will argue that the exclusion of women from discussions of sagehood is a culturally-informed exclusion due to the constraints of the hierarchical and patriarchal system present during the time when The Analects were recorded, and not an exclusion based on essential female moral deficiency or a requirement that sages be male. This argument is supported by a variety of articles and sources related to Chinese culture, Confucianism, and gender studies, all of which were located with the help of databases and search tools provided by the Bethel University Library. As a result of access to excellent resources and the support of Bethel Library's reference and research staff, this presentation is able to draw several interesting and significant connections between the ethical writings of Confucius and the culturally and historically-informed role of women in the pursuit of sagehood and moral perfection.